Sky-High beheld it with pleasure. Great was America! He was contented to sit and watch it for hours, or as long as the children pleased. It was not until sunset that the starry kite was hauled down through the golden air, and Lucy and Charles prepared to return home.
On the way the little serving-man said, "I have a kite in my trunk. You let me fly it for you some day? You come with me here?"
So another breezy day the Van Buren children came to the Park with Sky-High. Lucy danced about in the green world for very light-heartedness.
"You stay at the overlook," said Sky-High, pointing to the wild-flower embankment surrounded by burning azalias, "and I will show you how Chinese boys fly kites."
He had brought a thin package under his arm, and while Lucy and Charles waited at the embankment he ran like a thing of air out into the open field.
It was a glorious June day; and the great elms with their fresh young foliage were glimmering thick in the fiery sky, and like an emerald sea was the grass on the field, where hundreds of children were playing ball and other games.
Sky-High threw to the air a bundle of red with a few light angles and circles of bamboo, and it began at once to rise and expand. It went up into the mid-air, and fold after fold rolled out, and there appeared a great dragon.
All the children on the field stopped in their play to look up at it. The sun turned the dragon to intense red. To all appearance a terrible monster had taken possession of the air!
Suddenly the dragon wheeled about and went coiling along towards the overlook, Sky-High following and guiding its course. When it was just overhead it opened a great mouth, and smoke seemed to issue from it.
"Look out, little Lady of the Lotus," cried Sky-High merrily, "or it may swallow you!"